You're listening to the Mind over Murder podcast. My name is Bill Thomas.
I'm a writer, consulting, producer, and now podcaster. I am now
trying to use my experience as the brother of a murder victim to help other
victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book on the unsolved Colonial Parkway
murders and I'm the co administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilley. My name is Kristin Dilley. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the social media
manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook page with my partner in
crime, Bill Thomas. Welcome to Mind of a Murder. I'm Kristin Dilley
and I'm Bill Thomas, and we're joined today by author, a podcaster,
and journalist Richard Foster to talk to us about his books Southern Nightmare The Hunt
for the South Side Strangler, which is our book club selection for July.
Richard, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you glad to
be here. Richard. We were talking about this off air. We've been
talking about having you on Mind over Murder for three years, and it's our
failing that we haven't had you off until now. No, not at all,
we were saying, I've been fairly busy for the last several years,
so it's not a problem. I'm looking forward to it. Start by telling
us a little bit about your professional background. I had been in journalism and
communications for a little over thirty years. I started working as i'm working journalists
when I was still in college at Virginia Commonwealth University writing for the Richmond Times
Dispatch. I was a reporter on their state desk and business desk, and
when I was still in college. Over the years, I've worked for several
daily papers. I've been an editor for a news site, City magazine,
and I'm currently editor of Virginia Business Magazine, which is a monthly glossy.
And over the years done a little bit of everything. I've written a couple
of books. I've done a lot of investigative writing, profiles, government reporting,
entertainment, write a little bit of everything. Now, are you one
of those people, Richard, that knew what you wanted to do ever since
you were a kid? Yes? And no. I think I had an
epiphany when I was about nineteen or so where I realized that I did know
and hadn't been paying attention to it. I was one of those guys that
was in garage bands and stuff and was thinking I was going to be in
rock and roll and whatnot. But then when I started getting into taking college
a little more seriously in my late teens, I started thinking. And I
got into my first journalism class and loved it. I started thinking, I've
been doing this all along, now that I think about it, Yeah,
I was a newspaper when I was in middle school, and I've done some
writing like this for different things. And a light bulb went off that yeah,
I've been writing my whole life in one form or another, and I
like this, And yeah, Satherday Nightmare is not your only book. Tell
us about your book about Betty Page. Yeah, so, Bland is an
interesting story. It has done very well. It came out in nineteen ninety
eight and was adapted into a film by HBO, which actually got released in
theaters called A Notorious Betty Page. Some people may have seen that movie.
I've got a credit all the way at the very end of the movie.
I think solely because they remembered the very last minute they contractually had to put
that. I've collected comic books as a kid, was really loved art,
had gone to a lot of different comic book stores and had started in the
early nineties seeing these fanzines about Betty Page. And I didn't know who Betty
Page was. Of course, I knew the rocketeer those comics, Dave Stevens,
and I didn't realize, oh, hey, that's who that's where he
got his hair win for his comic from. And Yeah, I read a
little bit and found out that there was this mystery that she had appeared.
I started thinking, I'm gonna do a little piece about the fan following,
local fan following, and then I dug in and I ended up finding out
she has a brother in Nashville and she's still alive, and ended up getting
the first interview with her. Went from there, I ended up writing a
biography of her. Did you end up meeting with miss Page face to face?
Never did? Yeah, she sent me one letter. It was the
sixth page, very nicely unlined, stationary. Every line is sharp and steady,
and perfect primanship of this former English teacher. She had been at one
point in her life, but you know, I never did, and I
have friends who did and people I know who did. But she was not
happy with my reporting some of the details of her life, and I'll be
as upfront about that as I can be. It turned out that this became
a true crime book because she had alluded to that she had some troubles during
her time and didn't want to talk about on it. And as I dug
and started talking to people, I found out she had some severe mental health
crises and had actually stabbed some people, and it nearly stabbed a roommate to
death. In fact, it led to California changing some laws around matching roommates
for elderly people. And I was still debating on whether or not to write
that story when I interviewed thee a survivor of one of her attacks, and
you could still hear her name was Leoni had Dodd, and I get chills,
thinking aboud you could still hear how scared she was. And I would
have talked to her probably thirteen fourteen years after that attack, maybe more,
I can't quite remember, and she still obviously was still traumatized. And I
think that's when I realized there are victims involved, and that this is a
bigger story and it's not just her story, and I decided to tell the
full story. So she was a lot more than just a fifties pin up
and burlesque claim, and she was very She was an iconic. She still
had inspired tons of fashion photographers and diviners and all kinds of you'll see her
influence and image everywhere once you see it. But yeah, it was a
more difficult story. They're more human story and fascinating story. But unfortunately,
not everyone wants that story. I think a lot of people just want to
sanitize safe, cute, pin up model story. And I think if you
want that's there. There's other versions of that out there without all the other
details. But yeah, there's more to it, for sure. Speaking of
incredibly complex stories, let's go ahead and talk a little bit about Southern Nightmare.
The tagline for the book is the Hunt for the South Side Strangler.
For anybody who's unfamiliar, can you give just a brief summary of the south
Side Strangler case please? The bulk of the case takes place about thirty five
years ago, when I was kind of summer and fall of when I was
about sixteen years old nineteen eight seven. From September through November, four women
were killed in Richmond and in the Northern Virginia. They were killed in their
homes brutally. It was bondage murders, really horrible, and it set the
whole I remember being a teenager. The entire city was terrified. The story
ended up being a bigger story than that because there actually had been another murder
that predated those back in eighty four, and there were a string of other
attacks that were linked to these murders later. The amazing thing about this case
is it was not only the first case in American history where DNA solved a
murder, but the first case where DNA solved a serial killing. It was
both. It was just astounding. It's a historic case. It's taught at
criminal justice universities and classes. It deserves to be a lot better known.
And that really is something that was a theme with all of our comments on
our Facebook page. A lot of people said, why don't I know about
this case? This is so historic and so interesting. Why do you think
the South Side strangler murders have not received their proper place in the history of
true crime injustice in this country? I can't say entirely for sure why that
is. It's not the first case in the world. There was one other
case that predated it, Colin Pitchfork in England, which that name you couldn't
take a better name for a serial killer. And that guy is actually out
on parole right now. For those of us who follow the UK papers,
he has been paroled, which is a little mind blowing. I'm not sure
I have a great answer why the case has been forgotten. I think there
was one book written about it back in the nineties that was very a little
didactic, that was really heavy into the DNA and the science that maybe just
didn't catch the audience that should have. Perhaps, and somehow this also,
I think the case was solved, which sometimes the unsolved cases tend to be
the ones that get a little more attention. I don't know, I really
don't know, but it's one that definitely deserves to be known more, and
I hope I've done my part in trying to get it out there. As
Kristen says, there were a lot of questions and discussion on our social media
pages about this. Why don't I know about this case? Why haven't I
heard about this case, and the fact that it was so innovative from a
forensic perspective, I think the factors you've cited are certainly part of it.
I also wonder if this had happened in a larger city, if that might
have made a difference, if Richmond was just a little too small, Not
that I consider Richmond a small town. Far from it. Yeah, it
got national coverage. It did get national coverage where the arrest was made.
I know, I've seen clips and from Time Magazine, from others. I
know that it got some national coverage during the trials. Certainly we talk a
little bit later. But Patricia Cornwell, the famous bestselling crime novelist. Her
first book was a very loosely adapted, fictionalized version of these murders and inspired
her on a career. I'm not exactly sure why these got lost to memory,
and they it's a case that deserves to be known. What is it
that sparked your interest in the case. Is it just because you remembered it
and you lived through it, Has it always stayed with you, or is
there something more to it than that. There were a few factors at the
time. In twenty seventeen, I had a friend who was an editor at
Style Weekly magazine here in Richmond, which is an alternative weekly, and I
was a reporter there back in the mid nineties. They were looking to do
something. They weren't sure what they wanted to do, but they wanted to
do some kind of series, something true crime. They weren't sure what the
story was. We all went away and did a little brainstorming, and within
a couple of days it became really obvious what the story was because we all
came upon it independently. We need to do the South Side strangler story.
Because one of the victims had been an employee at Style. I did not
work with her because that she would have been killed about ten years before I
worked there, But she was friends of mine, people that I still in
touch with today. So I think there was that little feeling of there was
one of our own who needed to be remembered. But I think also it
quickly became we realized, Okay, the thirtieth anniversary of this case is coming
up. In fact, the more we dug into it, we realized it
was the thirtieth anniversary of the trials were coming up. We're already in the
middle of the thirtieth anniversary of the killings. That whole fall. During the
thirtieth anniversary of the killings, I was talking to a lot of people who
were connected with it, survivors, homicide detectives, FBI agents, family members,
going to some of the places where the murders had taken place. I
really spent a lot of that Fall of twenty seventeen and Winner of twenty eighteen
doing a lot of research and a lot of interviews. Talk to us a
little bit about that research process. How do you go about getting all your
information for a book like this? Is it just interviews or do you have
to dig into the microfish or turn to Google? What do you do when
you're ready to sit down and work on a project. This one, I
will say, was a lot easier than doing the Betty Page book, which
I had written in the early to mid nineties, because that one, I
had to go to the Library of Congress to get access to some newspapers that
were only available on microfish, and we're not at my local library. It
was. There was no Internet when I did that, and you had to
use these reverse phone directories to look up where people had lived and where they
went and what their names and numbers were look up all census records. It
was a great exercise back then. I learned a lot in tracking people and
figuring things out with the Internet, with the resources we have today makes things
a lot easier. I did have to go to the Library of Virginia in
person to track down some old contemporaneous tapes from WRVA radio their reportings of the
murders and the trials. So I was able to find some of that,
but a lot of it. I was able to find some archives online,
like from our local paper of record, the Richard Times Dispatch and it's afternoon
paper which is no longer with us, the Newsleader, and they of course
had done a ton of reporting back then. Dial Weekly of course had done
some too, and I had some of their materials. And another thing I
really looked out on one of my predecessors at Style, another reporter, Lisa
Bacon. She had covered the trial unknown to me. She's come over by
my house. I've got some stuff you might want to look at. Oh
wow, okay, So I go over and sit down with Lisa. She
has the entire trial transcript and which not even the courthouses had anymore. Phenomenal.
She had all of this, She had all of this stuff and had
hung onto it. That was probably that was a tremendous resource because it listed
names at listed witnesses, it listed direct testimony. It was fantastic. Well,
she excited about the fact that you were working on a new project.
Oh yeah, yeah, Lisa was Yeah's We've worked in so many places.
She was also a reporter at Virginia Business where I am now. She was
a reporter at Style. Yeah, Lisa, I think has always been a
big It's always been in my court. She was really happy to help.
But it was great at getting to hear because she had covered the court case,
so I got her insights and that first hand perspective of what it was
like and what she remembered. And of course you'll see in the book her
recollections because I interviewed her for this and she stepped in the Style. I
think she went to work for Style like two weeks after the murder took place,
and she talked about she came into this place two weeks after Debbie Davis,
who was the person at Style who had been murdered, and she said
it was just like walking and someplace that had a bomb thrown and everybody was
just walking around like zombies. And of course they would be again murder case.
There's gonna be a lot of downard moments. But it was a great
exercise and I met some really fascinating people, and that an FBI agent who
had also worked on the Atlanta child murders and had some really interesting thoughts and
perspective on that that, you know, I just got to hear. And
of course the two detectives, the two homicide detectives, one from Arlington,
one from Richmond. Joe Horgis from up in Arlington, and Ray Williams,
who is no longer with us. Ray was the detective primary detective Richmond.
Both of them were very were retired and both were very generous with their time.
These tapes that you found yourself going through, Richard, where were they
stored in? What format? Were you listening to the w RVA tapes?
Yes, they were on cassette. Somehow they were digitized as well. I
can't quite remember. Somehow I got to legetized version of them. Sorry,
this is going to be where it's five years later, and lots of stuff
that happened since it's hard to remember all the details, but yeah, I
know I worked with the librarians there, the research librarians of the Library of
Virginia, who were stellar, and yeah, they helped me find a lot
of us and they have excellent archives there. Yeah, shout out to the
Library of Virginia because they are amazing. If there's anybody like in our local
listening area who's never had a chance to go to the Library of Virginia,
do it. It is so cool, such a great resource for us to
have. Now help me out as a person that doesn't live in Virginia.
Who runs the Library of Virginia. Is this a state facility or state Yes,
that's a state one. But it's wonderful because they bring in lots of
guest speakers. Our friend Kate Miles was speaking at the Library of Virginia a
couple of months back about her book Trailed, and they're really great about making
sure that it's open and accessible to everybody through guest speakers and everything's very cool.
Yeah. Beth Mace see one of my former co workers at Roma Times
who wrote Dope Sick. I think she's been there and not too recent past.
Yeah, let's get into the Patricia Cornwell of it all because you did
mention her before. Sure, So she did use the south Side strangler cases
a model for her first book, Post Mortem, much in the same way
that she would later use to Colonial Parkway murders as a model for All that
remains. Have you read Postmortem? And if so, can you assess how
accurately she depicted the South Side stranglings. I'm just gonna be upfront and say
no, I have not read it. I flipped through it selectively to look
for certain information. Patricia Cornwell she lived here in Richmond for a long time.
A lot of people my parents' generation were huge fans of her, and
a lot of people I knew older journalists knew her, but they all called
her Patsy. I have never met her. I flipped selectively through post Mortum
to get a little taste of what where it was going. She had a
tremendous front row seat because she was working in the State Medical Examiner's office at
that time. A lot of people don't know that she or they probably do.
Around here, they know it not so much maybe elsewhere. But she
based her case Scarpetta character on doctor Fierro, our State Medical exam or,
a former State Medical Examiner who I interviewed for the book and who worked on
this case or the entire Southside strangler case. And yeah, Patricia Cornwell,
she had a front row seat working there in the Medical Examiner's office, and
of course she had been a local newspaper reporter before that. I think had
a good eye for detail and was inspired to write this case. I think
it is probably very fictionalized what I saw of it, well, I think
there may be a few details. I don't think it's way you know,
she's got a lot of stuff about odor and the killer being this diabolical mastermind
who's out menacing the medical examiner, and none of that is truely. I
think it's sufficiently fictionalized beyond just some very basics that it's a bondage bondage murders
and things. And doctor Fierro also worked on the Colonial Parkway murders and I've
spoken to her as well some years back now, and she's a wonderful person
and incredibly helpful. Why could you learn a lot talking to an expert like
that, and she is amazing. I did a profile on her years ago
for Richard Magazine when she was still State Medical examiner. It was frustrating because
she won't let you see her work, not allowed him because she this is
not entertainment. She was the best advocate for quote unquote her patients. She
did not see them as bodies or objects. She saw them as people.
That murder victim was somebody's mother. She treated them like a patient and she
God bless her. She was amazing expert forensic pathologists that we were very lucky
to have in this state, and amazing woman, just fascinating. We have
opinions Bill and I about Patricia Cronwell's work because she very obviously based all that
it remains on the Colonial Parkway murders, and that is something that we don't
feel should be used as entertainment. So I'm just curious. Do you have
an opinion about using real crime as a basis for fictional work. Yeah,
look, I'm going to come at this from saying I don't. Obviously,
I can understand where Bill's coming from completely. I very much respect where Bill
is as a family member of a murder victim, having also had someone close
to me murdered. That we're fictionalized, I don't know how I would feel
that said, I think just looking at it from a literary basis and also
as a writer myself, I think you can't help. But lots and lots
of writers, almost going back to the dawn of detective fiction, have used
true cases as an inspiration to write from. I think there's a million pastiches
of Sherlock Holmes modern interpretations. Holmes meets Jack the Ripper and tracks them down.
And I'm pretty sure Arthur Conan Doyle took some inspiration for some of his
Holmes cases from some real things too. Yeah, I think I guess the
question is it sufficiently fictionalized? Is there a sufficient distance? Are you doing
harm? I think those are all questions that probably should be asked. I
think Patricia Cornwell was writing almost contemporaneously. Her book about Southside strangling killings came
out what a year or two after the killings. It was very and I
think the same thing with the Parkway. I don't think there was a lot
of distance. It's about three years. And here's one area where I'll push
back solved versus unsolved. There's a lot of myths now that have gotten mixed
in with the Colonial Parkway murders, and many of them started with Patricia Cornwell,
and all that remains in terms of creating confusion kind of urban myths that
have become part of this case. When you start drilling down, you realize,
oh, this is in the book, and people read the book and
they think that's an accurate telling of the Colonial Parkway murders story, which obviously
it's not. And then we can let this topic go because I don't want
to turn this into a rant. There is a tremendous amount of detail in
all that remains that is lifted directly from excruciating detail that only someone would access,
would be able to write with this level of specificity, particularly about issues
and details that didn't even come out until later. They may have come out
in the years since because I've been outspoken, Kristen and other family members have
been outspoken in our interviews as we continue to pressure the FBI and the Virginia
State Police, and so more detail has come out about those murders in the
thirty plus years since. I think there's a big difference in if you're writing
a story that's about a case that's solved or a case that is hundreds of
years ago, like Jack the Ripper. Sure, yeah, and I agree.
Yeah, And again I think it comes down to that are you doing
harm? Are you putting information out there that could harm a case? I
can't speak because I've never written fiction, so I can't speak from that side
of the fence, But I can say having been a journalist, I have
been privy sometimes to things that I've known that the general public doesn't know about
murders or about certain cases when I've been asked, hey, we need you
not to say that. And that's sometimes where in journalism you get to make
little deals where okay, okay, I cannot say that. Can you give
me something else I can use or something? And that's part of the back
and forth you develop with sources. Yeah, there's definite times when you have
to realize there's a public good to consider as well. Yeah, that's concerning
if there are details there that should not be there. You're listening to Mind
over Murder will be right back after this word from our sponsors. We're back
here at Andover Murder Now. Southern Nightmare not only was a fantastic book,
but it was also a podcast as well. And so what were your goals
ultimately for the book and for the podcast. Was it just to bring awareness
to the case, or do you have other goals in mind when you sat
down to write this and then to bring it to the podcast space. I
think initially we were just looking to tell a good story. I think we
saw, okay, that there's the story that really has not that's been forgotten.
One of the people who worked at Style was a victim of this.
We think, Okay, thirty years later, all of the people who were
connected with it are getting a lot older. We may be losing some of
them. We did lose Ray Williams died not too long after the podcast aired,
so we knew we were under a little bit of a ticking clock there.
So yeah, I would say from a journalistic perspective, we were looking
to tell a good story that had been forgotten. However, once I got
into the digging in and started looking at this talking to people, and realized
what a second this made me the first case in US history solved with DNA.
What's going on here? Why don't more people know about this? And
so then I think it became a little background on me. My father was
deputy chief of the county. I lived in Henrico County. He was a
thirty year some thirty some year police veteran, and I grew up interest in
the law enforcement. Never really considered his career because my dad just told me
he didn't want me to do in that. But I think I had always
had an interest in crime and law enforcement all that, just because having my
dad and hearing stories and things. When I heard okay, we had the
first case DNA right here in Richmond and nobody remembers it, I'm thinking,
this is the story. This is the story that needs to be told.
This story needs to be brought back to the public consciousness and given some real
given some real prominence. Did the book come first or did the podcast come
first? The podcast came first, and then the book came very fast behind
it. I had a media partnership deal with Style. I did this independently
of Style as my own enterprise, but I had a deal with them where
they would get an excerpt, a written excerpt each week from the podcast.
For ten weeks we had the episodes airing. Style was airing installments of the
stories, which started with a cover story in Style, and we kicked it
off with a live event at VCU, and then once we finished, I
had a live show where we did the last episode and a live performance,
and then after that I decided, I've got all this material here. I
think I can make a book out of this. I've already written a lot,
and I was still piecing together some things like, for instance, you'll
hear in the podcast. I was equivocating on the DNA a little bit because
I wasn't sure because there was another case that was going through right at the
same time, more or less as the as the Southside strangler case. So
there was some question from different people about, Okay, which one was the
first? I believe me. I was still doing interviews, still doing research.
Sometimes as a basis of things that were being aired, I would get
calls from people saying, oh, hey, you didn't interview. I was
still doing reporting all the way up to the very end of the podcast,
and it was crazy outside of work. Outside of my full time job I
had then, I was working probably another twenty thirty hours more a week at
nights and weekends. By the time all of this finished, I had collected
enough information and was able to definitively say yes, this was the first DNA
case. I'd been able to do enough digging, and also I just had
so many little things that we didn't have room for in the podcast, so
many little things that got left on the cutting room floor, so many interesting
little tangents and side things I dug up that I think it made for some
extra material in the book that I think if you liked the podcast, you'll
still find some new stuff in the book. Let's go ahead and turn to
listener questions about Southern Nightmare. I want to start with the first question,
and this is from fellow author Lindsay Wade, who just had a book come
out and whose book is actually going to be our next pick for our book
club. So Lindsay rates, My question is whether or not there has been
confirmation that Timothy Spencer's DNA was added to Virginia's DNA database. The database was
created in nineteen eighty nine and he was executed in nineteen ninety four. I'm
curious if Virginia went back and collected from death row inmates after the database went
into effect. Since this is not always the case, I don't know for
certain. I would think yes, but I'm not certain. Doctor Paul Ferreira,
who unfortunately is no longer with us, he was director of the Virginia
Department of Forensic Science, and he established that databank, which again another first,
that Virginia created the first DNA database in the country, and that's what
the FBI's database ended up getting based on. And he established that here,
and it was established more or less as a direct result of the South Side
strangler case. So I would have to think that because that case was what
kicked it off. And also they knew that there were other attacks. There
were a string of rapes in addition to the five murders, and they did
find those connections, they did make connections to some of those where there was
some evidence left. Yeah, I would think it would have to be I'm
only going to push back lightly here because I can't comment specifically about Virginia,
but we have been disappointed numerous times in that people who you would think,
I'm talking about convicted killers, people on death row, people that have even
been executed, whose DNA is not in the system in the way that you
would think it should be for a variety of reasons. And there's an undercurrent
here nationally that there are tens of thousands of people whose DNA clearly belongs in
the CODIS system and their DNA is not in the system, including people that
are currently incarcerated on death row now and the States, And again, this
is not a shot at Virginia and it's not a comment about Virginia per se.
The States are completely dropping the ball. Is it a resources issue?
Bill? Is? It's a lot of It's a lot of different things.
There are questions about whether or not it's legal to go back and collect people's
DNA, potentially forcibly. In other words, some of these people are refusing
to allow their DNA to be taken. And there's question particularly at the state
level in various states around the country, as to whether or not you can
obligate someone to be forced to give their DNA. I thought that had already
been settled. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, that's something that wasn't aware
of. That's fascinating. Yeah, it's very disturbing. And yeah, because
look at the Golden State killer. So many cases in different jurisdictions. That
case was similar to this one in that he was committing crimes sometimes what an
hour or two apart, an hour or two drives apart, just like this
one, and they didn't realize that those were connected, just like this one.
And then some of those got connected, the dots got connected by DNA
and with a propensity for repeat offenders. Yeah, I'm with you. It
seems to me to be a no brainer that these people should be in the
database. Our next question is from Sarah Gee. It's a bit of a
long one, so I need a preface. So Sarah Gee asks, the
Diane show case really bugs me. It was completely different from the other crimes.
There were two hypotheses proposed in the book. Lewis Leshender said that it
was possible and escalation in risk behavior, which is not uncommon in serial killers,
and to one of the detectives said maybe Spencer thought Dan was a young
single woman because her parents worked so much and we're out of the house.
Sarah is curious about which theory you hold with for this case. Richard,
I think what we do know of serial killers, what I have learned from
talking with criminal justice experts, they do escalate in me or one thing leads
to another for various reasons. I cannot say myself. I don't think Timothy
Spencer, the South Side strangler, was the kind of person that would have
cared how old a person was. I don't think that mattered to him.
I think what mattered to him was did that person did the idea of attacking
them push his buttons? And were they an easy person to attack? Could
he access them? And I think she was vulnerable because simply because she had
there was a way to get into her room. Her parents were not there
very often, so it looked like a woman who was on her own,
or at least I think it was more about Again, I think a lot
of times with serial killers, people want things to make sense. They want
there to be some kind of logic what they do. Sometimes they are just
monsters. Sometimes there are just people who just want to do awful things because
it gets them excited. And that's not a great thing. That's not something
that anybody really wants to accept or believe, and it's and I think she
unfortunately was vulnerable and he saw those vulnerabilities. Very good question from Sarah.
So we have two from Amber. The first one I thought was particularly interesting
because I love theme questions. She says, nightmares are obviously a theme throughout
the book. Did you have any nightmares during your research and writing process for
this? This is tough material, It is short answer. Yes, I
don't know that I could say necessarily what they were, just because I don't
know that I remember, but I know I had some. I think it
is very difficult to live, breathe, eat, sleep this for I did
it for about thirteen fourteen months between when I started the research on the project
and published the book. Yeah, it is awful stuff that sticks in your
head and you think about this case in particular, spoke to somebody who violated
home and hearth, who violated the safety and sanctity of people's homes. It
was such a violation just not only their bodies, and they're just the basic
decency of everything, of just what you expect to be safe when you're in
your own home. And I think, yeah, it's hard not to feel
that and to feel the fear and awfulness of that, and to have some
of the stuff pop up in your head. Yeah, it's not a fun
place to be. My hat is off to homicide detectives and people who are
able to work in this field, because Lord knows they're needed, especially good
ones and talented ones. And that really is a case. That's a job
that eat some people up alive. Yeah, I can't see doing this all
the time, I think. I once I was done with this, I
needed a break from it. I don't really think I have listened to true
crime podcasts or anything since that. To be honest with you, I think
I just needed to get away from it. That is one hundred percent understandable.
I had the same thought. Understandable was the word that came to mind.
The second question from Amber, she asked about Rena. She said,
did Rena's murder ever get investigated any further? And besides the fibers that were
found, was there anything else forensically connecting her former roommate or someone else to
the crime. I can say that I think that case still bothers some retired
law enforcement. I know there were a lot of rumors around that case.
I think I was able to disprove one of those rumors. But I will
say I just got a call not too long ago from somebody who was former
law enforcement saying that they're still digging into it. On the side, I
don't know that anything will ever come out of that because it's been so long.
I don't know what evidence of any still exists. Yeah, my knowledge
is there was not a whole lot connecting the former roommate other than circumstance and
some fiber analysis, but given the circumstances, it doesn't seem unlikely that he
did it, but it's hard to know. I don't think it was a
Timothy Spencer murder. I really don't from everything I've heard. But yeah,
I do know that it's something that still interests former law enforcement folks. I
don't know that there's ever going to be a resolution, but they are still
some of them are still bugged by it. I have an additional question as
well, Richard, Southern Nightmare is such an amazing book and podcast series.
Was this ever optioned for a film or television show? No? I think
partly because I didn't have time to do the marketing and the legwork on it,
and partly because I decided to do it. My Betty Page book had
been done through a traditional publisher and with resources and an organization that did successfully
sell the film rights. With this one, I decided to self publish and
do my own company because I wanted to see, Okay, if I do
that, do I get a bigger share of royalties? Blah blah. I
think what I was forgetting is you also have to do all the marketing,
and yes, there's a big piece of the puzzle there that I was missing,
and I did not have time to really devote myself too. That said,
yeah, I think it would make a tremendous mini series or a documentary.
Unfortunately some of the folks are passed. But it's a tremendous story.
To me, it's got It's every bit as interesting and compelling as some of
the things that I've seen from Netflix and such. I think we both feel
the same way, absolutely, and we've really already addressed i'd say the biggest
listener question of all, which is why this case just doesn't seem to be
better known. The final listener question that we have is from Sam, who
just says, what is your next project? To know what else you're planning
and working on. Bill knows that when I was finishing Southern Nightmare, I
was actually interested in the Colonial Parkway and that was where I was thinking about
and I had some ideas on that one. He has come over and join
us. That's how Bill and I met, But as pretty much right after
Southern Nightmare wrapped up and I'd taken a little rest for a couple of months,
I got offered the editorship of Virginia Business. Since then, just being
the head of this business magazine. It pretty much takes all of my time.
We do great work, and it's a busy publication, busy staff right
now, doesn't leave time for things on the side. Unfortunately, I'd love
to do another season of Southern Nightmare. I've got ideas for lots of things,
and I'm hoping I'll get to come back to it sometime. The book
and the podcast is Southern Nightmare, The Hunt for the South Side Strangler and
Richard. If people want to buy this, where can they buy it?
Amazon? All right, Richard, thank you so much for joining us.
We appreciate it. Thank you, Thank you had a great time. We
hope that everyone has enjoyed our first selection for the Mind of a Murder book
Club, Southern Nightmare. We will put up some links in resources in our
show notes so that you can locate the podcast, and we will announce our
next book club selection very shortly. Thank you so much for joining us for
this episode of Mind Over Murder. We'll see you next time. Mind Over
Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and Another Dog Productions. Our executive producers
are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley. Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Our theme music is by Kevin McLeod. Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership
with Coral Space Media. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or
Instagram. You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway Murders on Facebook,
and finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at Bill Thomas.
Five six. Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder. My My, My,